Secretary Tourism holds meet with travel, tourism players

In order to offset the negative perception about J&K, tourism department will launch second phase of multi-pronged tourism promotional campaign within and outside the country.

Secretary Tourism Rigzin Samphel stated this while convening a meeting with the representatives from travel and hospitality sector here at tourism directorate office on Friday.

Rigzin Samphel said the department has already started outdoor campaigns at Delhi and Mumbai airports where ads on J&K tourism run on regular intervals.

He said the department has also started advertisement campaign in major print and electronic media including FM stations both at national and regional level across the country to attract travellers to the state and also apprise them about the tourism products of the State.

Secretary tourism said the department would also reach out to the leading travel and tour operators within and outside the country and apprise them about the J&K’s tourism products and also about the safety of the travellers to offset negative perception created by a certain section of the media.

“We will also take local stakeholders on board and the senior officers from the department will tour different potential markets in India and abroad to further promote state’s tourism products.”

In order to ensure that the tourists are safe in the valley, Rigzin Samphel said that the department will also host a Familirsation (FAM) Trip for the media houses of the country and show them different tourist locations.

“There are lots of positive stories which media can project from this place. We want the media to visit this place and see how tourists are freely roaming here and how they are enjoying local hospitality and making their holidays memorable,” he said.

On the occasion, travel trade also made several suggestions including hiring of professional PR agencies at national level.

Secretary tourism gave a patient hearing to the suggestions and feedback of the travel trade and assured that the department would make every effort to promote it at the national and international level.